


Ondine

by pasiphile



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-21 12:32:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6051703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasiphile/pseuds/pasiphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irene has known many women, but none of them quite like Kate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ondine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meroure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meroure/gifts).



> warnings for discussion of eating disorders and body image issues, and reference to harrassment

Elaine Jenkins lives opposite the Agent Provocateur shop.

She also lives next door to a sex shop, but that’s of lesser interest to Irene. Sex shops are seedy, dark, shameful affairs, which hasn’t been her style for several years now. She much prefers the boutique’s high-end swank, wafting of luxury and sensual decadence, more champagne than semen. It’s there her eyes stray while she waits for the door to open, to the black and burgundy lace hugging the hard white plastic curves of the mannequins.

“Distracting, isn’t it?” a slightly hoarse voice says behind her.

Irene turns. There’s a rather gorgeous paint-splattered redhead standing in the doorway, watching Irene with obvious amusement. “Elaine isn't in?” Irene asks, an eyebrow raised.

“She’s still out, but she'll be here in a minute. Please, come in.”

Irene follows her inside, leaving behind the mannequins without regret. True, she prefers subtlety to crassness, promise and whisper to in-your-face, but she’ll also always prefer flesh and blood to the fake.

Real people are far more interesting than characters.

The interior of the flat is styled according to something possibly best described as _industrial chic_ : bare brick walls, visible metal beams, large windows in the high roof - and surprisingly quite a few paintings and sketches thrown carelessly about. At the back of the room there’s a mezzanine, where she can just glimpse a low, unmade bed, the corner of the sheet dangling down over the edge.

There’s something strangely reckless about it, placing a bed so close to a potential lethal drop.

She turns back to the redhead to find she’s being watched. “Sorry,” Irene says smoothly. “I didn’t quite catch your name.”

“Kate,” the redhead says, still with that amused, slightly cold smile.

“Kate,” Irene repeats, and something flickers in the girl’s face. “So, you’re Elaine’s… roommate?”

“You can leave out the significant pause.” Kate smile sharpens. “We broke up five months ago.”

“And you still live together?”

“Ye-es. It’s okay, it was the – the fade-out, low-drama kind of break-up. I mean, it isn’t ideal, but it isn’t easy either, finding something affordable in London.” And she stops talking, as if she said more than she wanted to.

Irene often has that effect on people.

“Anyway,” Kate says, back in the slightly cold voice from when she opened the door. “Let me take your coat.”

Irene turns. Kate’s fingers brush her shoulders, a slight careful touch that makes her want to shiver.

Kate takes the coat to the rack. Irene watches Kate’s straight back; the thick auburn hair pulled up into a messy bun, baring her nape; the line of her shoulders and waist, only visible when she leans over and her loose blouse’s modest billow suddenly starkly delineates the curve of bone and flesh.

“So,” Irene says. “You’re a painter?”

“Aspiring.” Kate turns back to her, arms crossed across her chest. Defensive. “I’m studying graphic design, the painting is a – a hobby,” she adds, forcing the word out with tangible distaste. Hobby against her wishes, then, the old story of artistic dreams put aside for cold harsh realism.

Irene hums and lets her eyes travel across the flat. There are several paintings on the wall, whorls of dark earthy colours that only fall into shape after a few moments of studying, abstract twists and turns suddenly forming rivers, buildings, trees, vines – and the occasional person. There’s one in particular that catches her interest. She slowly walks closer and holds her fingers over the canvas, not-quite touching the thickly laid-on paint. Touching would break the illusion of being only an inch away from caressing warm bare flesh.

“It’s beautiful,” Irene murmurs.

Kate huffs. “She thinks I keep it around as revenge.”

Irene smiles, amused. The woman-shape on the canvas is fairly anonymous, the face nothing but a suggestion of shape: the cupid’s bow of a mouth, a dark smudge of eyes, one straight thin line somehow perfectly calling up a sharp, pronounced nose. It's still quite recognisable, though, if you know what you're looking for.

“And do you?” Irene asks.

“No.” Kate steps closer, ending up almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Irene. She smells strangely of spices. Not as in an oriental perfume, but more as if she just came from a kitchen, and still there’s something refined about it, luxurious.

“Then why?”

“Because it’s one of my best.”

Something about the tone – confident, but not arrogant, calm statement of fact – makes Irene look. Kate is smiling, wry and cold and slightly self-deprecating.

“I suppose that’s the love shining through,” Kate adds, in a tone that matches the smile.

Irene opens her mouth to reply, but then the door opens behind them and a voice says “ _Miss Adler_ ”.

Irene turns and smiles at Elaine, who blushes faintly at the sudden attention – a blush that deepens when she realises what Irene and Kate were looking at. Seen side to side like this, the resemblance is cruelly obvious.

“Elaine, darling,” Irene says warmly, then adds, with a streak of sadism she has never learned to suppress, “Your roommate was just showing me her work.”

Elaine gapes like a fish, face bright red, fidgeting like mad. “I’m – sure, yes. Can we – you wanted to…?”

“With pleasure,” Irene says graciously, then follows Elaine to a side room.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Kate’s smile, amused and cruel and superior.

***

Kate doesn’t linger.

Irene meets many women, attractive and not, and regardless of how interesting the short encounter with Kate was, the girl quickly fades from Irene’s memory, leaving nothing but a faint imprint of messy red hair, a certain scent. And her smile, of course.

Irene is somewhat of an expert on the matter of smiles, these days, and Kate’s – cold, amused, arrogant, yet still with an edge of warmth and kindness that softened the sharp edges of the mockery – is one of a kind.

But the rest of Kate disappears into the fog of dozens other women, other curves and warm skin and soft hair tumbling down rounded shoulders.

Irene is _busy_ , these days.

***

“Background.”

Irene looks up from the portfolio on her lap. “Hm?”

“Your background,” Clara explains patiently. “Not all-white, right? So, patterns? Draping?”

“Something subtle,” Irene says. “But not boring.”

“Dark or light?”

“Dark, definitely.”

Clara nods and starts rummaging through a large pile of fabric rolls. “I called in a friend, to help with makeup,” she says over her shoulder.

Irene cocks her head. “I generally do my own makeup,” she says, letting a hint of chill creep into her voice. “You think it’s insufficient?”

Clara shrugs. She’s an unflappable sort of girl, which of course was exactly what Irene needed for this, but it’s _odd_ , having someone completely unaffected by her presence.

“You said you wanted the best possible version, Irene. I can send her away again if you insist, but…” Clara smiles. “She’s got a gift.”

“Oh, very well then.” Irene kicks her feet up onto the chaise longue and takes her heels off. “For today, I will do exactly what you tell me to. Don’t grow used to it, though,” she adds, with a small smile.

Clara returns it. “I wouldn’t dream to. What do you think, this or this?” She holds up two rolls of fabric, one a deep burgundy, the other black with a grey pattern.

“Black. I’ll offer better contrast.”

“Alright.” She stands up. “I’ll get this set up, and you can change into your first outfit. D’you want a modesty screen?”

“I don’t.” Irene stands up again and starts unbuttoning her blouse. “As long as you remember that generally, people don’t see this unless they’ve paid significant amounts of money.”

“I won’t, trust me.”

Irene shrugs the blouse off. Clara’s eyes don’t linger as she turns away. “Nothing at all?” Irene asks, teasing. “Not even a peek?”

“Nope,” Clara says, rolling a screen over.

“Not your type, am I?”

“I don’t perv at clients.” She looks over her shoulder and smiles at Irene. “At least, not until I’m behind my camera.”

Irene slips out of her skirt. She goes to her bag and starts pulling out garments – a corset, a garter belt, a long sheer peignoir… All beautiful, all flattering, but which one does she start with?

She falls back on the old familiar and takes up the corset. Despite common misconceptions, she’s perfectly capable of putting it on herself, even if she has to suck in her stomach and straighten out her back as she does so.

She has just done up the last of the hooks when someone knocks. Clara yells _come in_ , either forgetting Irene is mostly naked or assuming she doesn’t care. The door opens.

Instantly, the fog of memory clears and from a herd of half-faded girls, Kate’s shape comes out clear and sharp. “Hullo,” Irene says with a smile. “How lovely to see you again.”

“And you,” Kate replies, eyebrows raised. “Small circles, I suppose.”

Elise stops what she’s doing with the screen and looks up in surprise. “You two know each other?”

“She hired Elaine to do her web design, dropped by the flat for an appointment. We…” Kate’s eyes stray to Irene. “Bumped into each other.”

“Well,” Irene says, still smiling, “as delighted as I am to see you here, I’m not sure…”

“I’m make-up,” Kate says, holding up a black case.

Irene raises an eyebrow. “You’re a woman of many talents.”

“Just the ones involving colour and shape. Clara, where can we sit?”

Clara jerks her chin. “Take the chaise and pull a pouf close or something. I’m off to the basement, I’ll be a few moments. You’ll be alright?”

“Perfectly,” Irene says, eyes on Kate’s face.

Clara leaves. The door falls closed with a loud bang that leaves the room’s silence echoing strangely. Irene sits down and watches Kate go down to her knees, spread open her tools on the other end of the chaise. She's got long, elegant fingers, with very short but neat nails. Artist’s hands.

And she stays silent. In Irene’s experience, people can’t stand silences beyond a few seconds, and will chatter out anything just to fill up the nothing. But Kate doesn’t particularly seem to mind.

It’s intriguing.

Kate takes a brush and a tube and sits up, coming face to face with Irene. “Face the light.”

“Not going to ask me what look I’m going for?” Irene asks, half amused, half genuinely curious. “What I want?”

“No.” She takes another tube and starts mixing foundation on her hand. “Trust me.”

“I don’t make a habit of trusting people I barely know.”

Kate gives her a quick fleeting look. “Not even over a bit of face paint?”

“That face paint is going on the pictures, those pictures will be on my website, and my website is the starting point for every future prospective client. Rather influential bit of face paint, don’t you think?”

“Hmm.” Kate goes back to her colours. “Well, you’ve seen my work. If you want to dictate what I do, be my guest.”

“You can follow orders?”

A flash of green-grey eyes. “If needed. But I know what I’m doing.”

Irene cocks her head and takes a moment to thoroughly study Kate. The girl seems to mind being watched as little as she minds being silent; instead of the twitching self-conscious nervousness of most people, there's just calm as she continues to lay out her tools. Competence - or at least, a very good impression of it.

And Irene has always had somewhat of a weakness for people good at their job.

So, “Go on, then,” she says, and Kate smiles.

"Good." She gently tips Irene’s chin up. “Hold still, now.”

Irene closes her eyes and gives in to the soft sensation of the brush’s hairs caressing her skin. She’s careful, Kate, but decisive. She _does_ know what she's doing.

“How did you come to do this, then?” Irene asks.

“Hold _still_.” Something cool swipes over Irene’s cheekbones. “A favour for a friend, and then a friend of a friend, and then I was suddenly earning a – a sizeable amount of money. I can use it. And it’s better than being a barista.”

“Quite.” Irene opens her eyes. Kate is bent over her kit again, fingertips floating above a rich collection of colours before settling on a bright sky-blue.

“That’s not my colour,” Irene says promptly.

Another of those odd, laughing, sarcastic looks. “It is, you know.”

“Then it’s not the effect I’m going for.”

“What do you want, then? Sultry mistress of the night?” Kate dips her brush into the little pot. “I can go for boring old grey, if you want, but I thought you wanted to stand out?”

“In a good way.”

Kate pauses, the tip of the brush dipped into the aquamarine power, and she smiles. _That_ smile. “Trust me.”

Irene closes her eyes and lets Kate swipe the edge of the brush close to her lashes. The girl is leaning so close Irene can feel the soft puff of warm breath on her skin, smell her scent – still no perfume, a hint of turpentine, something powdery. Quite unique.

“There,” Kate says. Irene opens her eyes. Kate is still half-smiling. “Perfect.”

She puts the pot down and leans back to select another shade, taking her scent and that strange sense of closeness away from Irene. Irene briefly closes her eyes, needing a moment before she trust herself to look at Kate again.

When she does, her breath hitches. The light in the studio is catching Kate's face, highlighting the full pout of her bottom lip, the delicate rim of her ear, giving her an almost unreal beauty.

“Do you model yourself?” Irene asks, on impulse.

“Me?” Kate looks up briefly. “No.”

“You’ve got the face for it.”

“I know,” she says. Once again, something that could’ve sounded arrogant in anyone else comes calm and factual from Kate.

“And?” Irene tilts her head, quizzical and interested, a move that has made more than one of her clients reveal far more than they had initially intended.

“ _And_ ,” Kate says, “I was asked once. I said no.”

“Why?”

Kate stays silent for so long Irene is certain she crossed a line, but then Kate looks up.

“I was sixteen,” she starts, focusing entirely on her brushwork, both looking and not-looking at Irene. “Out shopping with a few friends, when this complete stranger stopped me and said she was a headhunter for a model agency. Said I’d be perfect, _if_ I lost a bit of weight, naturally.” She swipes her brush just below Irene’s cheekbones. “You have to understand, I’d just had a growth spurt, I was _skinny_.”

“Still, an offer like that to a teenager… Weren’t you flattered?”

“No.” She takes another one of her little pots and dips the brush in again. “You see, a few… a few weeks earlier a good friend of mine had been hospitalised. Anorexia. She had starved herself to the point she needed to be fed with catheter.”

“Ah,” Irene says. “So…”

“So, I told that damn woman exactly what I thought of her and her whole bloody industry, in front of everyone out shopping. It was a very busy afternoon,” she adds, with some satisfaction.

“Hence no modelling?”

“That’s right.” She carefully traces a half-circle from Irene’s temple to her cheekbone with the brush. “I’m a behind-the-screens kind of girl, anyway.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

Kate looks up. Long eyelashes framing bright eyes, perfect skin and a doll’s mouth and that thick auburn hair framing her face, but that’s just – outsides. What interests Irene is the expression in those eyes: even now still slightly mocking, slightly cold, held back.

“Purse your lips,” Kate says, softly, almost a whisper.

Irene does, and lets Kate trace her mouth with a small brush. When she's done Irene presses her lips together, the waxy taste of lipstick tainting her tongue.

Kate’s fingertip very gently touches Irene's bottom lip. Irene opens her mouth and closes around Kate’s finger, and Kate pulls back slowly, the lipstick leaving a reddish wet trail on her pale skin.

Irene tilts her head again. Kate mirrors her.

“Careful,” Kate murmurs, in that smoke-and-mist voice of hers. “Don’t want to smudge all my hard work.”

“Isn’t it worth it?” Irene asks, leaning an inch closer. Kate’s lips part. Irene can see the line where lipstick stops and the natural colour of her lips peeks through.

Hot breath brushes against her mouth.

And then the door opens.

“Got the lights. Kate, love, can you give me a hand for a moment?”

Kate smiles, unaffected, then stands up and moves away from Irene’s personal space. It feels a bit like stepping out of a plane after a long flight, the same feeling of a sudden onslaught of fresh air and noise and scent after a subjective eternity of being in a small, intimate, enclosed space.

Irene takes a deep breath, then turns around on her chaise and smiles.

“Shall I start posing, then?”

***

Bitch: cold eyes, whip in her hand, untouchable and hostile, one sharp line drawn above each lashline as if it's mirroring the shape of the whip.

Dominatrix: cuffs dangling from a red-tipped finger and a spiky heel sinking suggestively into the armrest of the sofa, dark plum lips curved into a lazy smile.

Naughty Girl: ruffles and lace, a teasing glance as she looks over her shoulder, thin fabric slipping down her arm, long lashes and pastels softening her eyes.

Irene smiles and shuffles the photographs back together. All the archetypes, neatly portrayed, but all subtle and artistic enough not to turn away the kind of people who dislike the sleaziness of sex work.

The makeup helps a lot.

Her phone rings, the boring businesslike old-fashioned ring of her work phone. “Hullo?” she answers, eyes still on herself, on a soft pink smile and twinkling eyes.

“I’ve got something I want you to see.”

Kate. “Do you?” Irene asks, letting her voice go full-on sultry seductress. It’s probably a bit too much, and when Kate replies there’s obvious laughter in her voice.

“Can you come over?”

Irene smiles. “Gladly.”

***

When Irene arrives, Kate leads her straight to the back of the studio, where a covered easel is waiting for them. They aren’t touching, keeping a careful few inches between them. Kate doesn’t say a word.

They stop, side by side, in front of a covered canvas. Irene holds out her hand. “May I?”

Kate takes a deep breath – the first sign of anything approaching nervousness Irene has seen on her so far – and nods.

Irene pulls the cover off.

It’s a watercolour of London, the skyline instantly recognisable, in blue and purple hues giving the city an oddly fitting wet, fairy-tale look. But that’s not the important bit.

In the front, there’s the back of a woman – of _Irene_. She’s naked, and her head is half turned, just enough to catch a glimpse of cheekbone, nose, lips. It gives her the impossible urge to crawl inside the picture, to somehow catch the painted woman’s attention and make her look around, anything to simply see the full view of that face.

Frustrating. Teasing. Mysterious.

Kate is watching her, a subtle tension just visible in her shoulders, her hands. “And?”

Irene puts her hand on the back of Kate’s neck, pulls her close, and lightly presses her lips against Kate’s. Kate’s eyes flutter closed, her long eyelashes brushing Irene’s cheekbone, and she returns the kiss but it’s chaste, closed lipped, and over far too soon.

Irene leans back. “Yes?” she asks.

Her lipstick has transferred to Kate’s mouth. The shade doesn’t suit her, too red, too obvious.

Kate steps away and Irene follows her up to the mezzanine and the low bed that stands there. Kate turns and slides her plain sheath-like dress off her shoulders, letting it pool to the floor. Beneath it, she’s naked.

“Yes,” Kate says, and she holds out her hand.

***

Fucking Kate isn’t quite what she’d expected.

She’s – uncatchable, nebulous, changeable. One moment she’s loose-limbed and submissive, doing nothing but stroking Irene’s shoulders and arching her back beneath Irene’s touches, and then the next moment she turns over and roughly pins Irene’s wrist down on the soft mattress, her smile wicked and broad and, for once, heated.

“He-llo,” Irene drawls, looking up at Kate from beneath her lashes. “Is this what you like, then?”

“I like a lot of things.” She leans down, her lips briefly, teasingly, touching Irene’s mouth. “What about you? How much is persona, how much is you?”

“Isn’t that the question,” Irene says softly.

Kate’s fingertips brush Irene’s wrist. It’s an innocent touch, and yet - or maybe because of that - it sends fire down Irene’s veins.

“Please,” Kate says, her eyes hooded. “Tell me.”

Irene hooks her calf over the back of Kate’s leg and leans up, kisses Kate’s sharp collarbone. “I’ll show you,” she promises. She pulls her wrist from Kate’s grasp and throws her arm around Kate’s waist, pulls her in snugly.

Part of her is sneering at this, vanilla sex, _boring_ sex. The rest of her is glorying in the simple pleasure of skin against skin and the lazy feral way Kate’s hips move against hers.

They roll over again, Kate half on her side and Irene next to her, pushed up onto one elbow, her free hand on Kate’s hip. “Odalisque,” she whispers. She leans in and presses her lips to the sharp blade of Kate’s hipbone, accompanied by Kate’s hoarse laughter.

“Is that what you want me to do?” Kate asks, mocking. “Lie back, wait for you, ready and willing?”

“Yes,” Irene growls. She pushes against Kate’s thigh and the girl rolls onto her back, legs subtly spread, not enough to be crass or demanding, just a suggestion. Irene takes it up and crawls up between Kate’s thighs, hands on the soft pale skin.

Kate reaches out, touches Irene’s hair. “Off,” she says, tugging at a strand. “I want…”

Irene smiles, reaches up to pull out her hairpins, and goes down, licking and sucking at the slick sea-salt wetness. Kate’s hand comes down, fingers tangling in Irene’s hair, and loose tendrils brush Kate’s pale thighs.

Irene glances up. Kate is arched back, her hand tangled in the sheets above her head, her eyes closed, her cheeks flushed, and her teeth buried in her bottom lip. She doesn’t make a sound, lips stubbornly closed as if she’s trying to prove a point.

 _(and later she’ll find out that Kate is almost always silent, that it’s a point of pride, and she’ll spend hours and hours trying to coax even the smallest of moans out of her stubborn darling girl_ )

Irene smiles and opens her mouth wide, nudges the tip of her tongue against Kate’s clit. Kate’s hips jerk forward and her breath catches, a stuttering gasp that isn’t quite a moan but close enough to have the same effect.

That’s the thing about cold people: it makes it that more lovely to see them melt.

***

The light is a deep golden molasses colour as it falls into the bedroom, painting strange patterns on their skin. Kate delicately traces the edge of the shadows with one fingertip, a slow line over Irene’s stomach, her ribs, dipping just beneath her breast and then over her ribcage again.

Their makeup is smudged, hair messy and filled with knots. Irene’s mouth is pleasantly swollen and her nipples ache and next to her, Kate’s white skin is marked with long red lines, purplish blossoms, teeth-shaped indents.

“Tell me something,” Irene says, fingers playing with Kate’s hair.

Kate laughs, quietly, breathless. “Like what?” she asks.

“Anything. Something about you.”

She stays quiet for a while, head pillowed on Irene’s chest, fingers still tracing lines and curls onto Irene’s skin.

“I used to bite my nails,” she says after a moment. Her voice is even more hoarse than before, as if the lack of noises affected her throat just as much as screaming would have. “So badly my parents sent me to a therapist. He made me wear nailpolish, so I got distracted by how pretty it was instead of biting at them.”

“Good,” Irene says encouragingly. “What else?”

“I came third in a national gymnastics competition when I was thirteen.” Kate directs her eyes to the beams running beneath ceiling. “I’ve slept with one man, and five women. I have an older sister, and a niece. My parents are both dead. I voted for the Green Party in the last elections. I can’t walk in heels any higher than two inches.”

“I know another thing about you,” Irene says lazily.

Kate smiles. “Do you?”

“You’re an _outstanding_ liar.”

Kate laughs, then rolls over. Irene leans her head on Kate’s chest and runs her hand over the girl’s smooth thigh, smiling at the soft baby hairs where she stopped shaving.

“You don’t seem to mind,” Kate says.

“When you’ve dealt in lies as long as I have, you learn to stop relying on words.”

“Then what do you rely on?”

“The body’s truth,” Irene says, and as if to demonstrate she runs her hand up Kate’s thigh. Kate arches up, her eyes closing catlike in delight.

“Do you think I can’t lie like this?” Kate asks, a slight catch in her voice.

“You’re not lying now.”

“That’s now what I asked.” She opens her eyes. She’s got that look on again, patient and calm, waiting it out and taking amusement in watching. She’d make a brilliant domme.

“Look at you,” Irene murmurs.

Kate grins, wide and unembarrassed. Proud in almost a feral way, as if the thought that she should play coy didn't even cross her mind - and suddenly Irene feels a sharp spike of possessive _want_ , one that – for once – has relatively little to with sex. It takes her by surprise, enough to make her say, “Stay.”

“What, with you?” Kate raises one auburn eyebrow.

“Yes. I could use a good liar.”

“Use?” Kate echoes, with a sudden chill in her voice. She takes Irene’s hand and pulls it away from her. “Was this a job interview?” she asks, sounding close to anger. “A skills test?”

 “No,” Irene says, truthfully. “I only thought of it now. Won’t you at least consider it?”

Kate disentangles herself from Irene and stands up. She shrugs on a kimono and goes down the narrow stairs, not sparing Irene another look.

A moment or two later, she can hear the sound of a running shower.

Irene sighs and leans back, hand over her eyes. “Women,” she exhales, explosively.

Then she finds her bag, pulls out one of her new visiting cards, and arranges it artfully on top of the mess of stray pillows and tangled, stained sheets.

***

It takes five weeks before Kate contacts her. That’s all right; Irene is nothing if not patient. Good things are worth waiting for, in her opinion, and she’s become naturally suspicious of instant gratification.

They meet up at a café. Kate orders a chamomile tea, ignoring the barista's clumsy attempts at flirting with a dismissiveness that's surprisingly cruel, and gets Irene an espresso without asking her first. They find a table, sit down, and Kate carefully drops three sugars into her mug, all the while looking at Irene.

Irene waits.

“How did you know?” Kate asks, at last.

“Know what?”

“The job.”

Irene frowns. “Know _what_?”

Kate blinks. She leans back, arms crossed beneath her breasts, still watching. Then she says, “I began a secretarial course before I started graphic design.”

Irene laughs. “A secretary? _You_? Why on earth would you want that?”

“I liked to idea of being someone’s second in command,” Kate says.

Irene loses her smile a little.

“To be at someone’s shoulder, helping them, making sure they can do their work. Like I said…” Kate shifts a little, arms uncrossing. “Like I said: I’m a behind-the-screens kind of girl.”

“Began,” Irene says. “Not finished?”

“No. I was nineteen, first year. Internship.” She pauses for a moment. “My boss was a prejudiced idiot with grabby hands. I put up with it for two weeks, gritting my teeth, and then I realised that prejudiced idiots with grabby hands were the rule, not to exception, and that the perfect boss I kept imagining didn't exist.”

“So you quit?”

“So I quit,” Kate says. “And changed to something where I wouldn’t have to follow orders.” She pauses, eyes on Irene, then adds, “But only after informing the bastard’s wife of his affairs and pasting a large unflattering caricature of him on his office door.”

 “You’re a delight,” Irene tells her.

“Or a pain in the arse, depending on where you stand.”

“I’m definitely standing on the side of _delight_.”

Kate doesn’t reply.

They watch each other, careful, wary. Waiting.

“It’s not just about the work,” Irene says. “My offer.”

“Then what is this? A plea for friendship?”

“Yes.”

The honesty of it takes both of them by surprise, breaking the subtle smoke-and-mirrors atmosphere like a bullet through glass.

Kate tilts her head. “What would I have to do?”

“Clothing and makeup. Take care of the managerial aspects, the paperwork. Chauffeuring.” Irene pauses, then adds, “Tasering the occasional troublesome client.”

Kate laughs. “Is that supposed to be a warning or an incentive?”

“The latter, naturally.” Irene smiles at her, broad enough that her dimples appear. “I surmised you’re the aggressive sort.”

Kate returns the smile, then holds out her hand, palm up. It’s a simple, uncomplicated invitation, and even so it feels tremendously _bare_ to reach across the table and take Kate’s cool, long fingers in hers.

“And this?” Kate asks, running her thumb across Irene’s knuckles. “Is that part of the job too?”

“No.” Irene draws her nails lightly across Kate’s palm, hears her breath catch. “But I’d hope you would still want to.”

“Inbetween your clients? Would you still have energy?”

“I don’t fuck my clients.” Irene takes up Kate’s hand and on impulse raises it to her lips, a strangely old-fashioned, _gallant_ gesture. “I fuck you,” she says, smile turning impish.

“You make it sound like a habit.”

“I’m being presumptuous. Do you mind?”

“No.” She squeezes Irene’s fingers, then lets go. “I’ll consider it,” she says, true to character, keeping distance.

“I will await your decision with bated breath,” Irene says solemnly.

“You will, will you?” Kate says. She stands up and looks down at Irene, then abruptly about-turns and leaves.

Irene grins into her coffee.

***

Two days later there’s a _yes_.

It comes in the shape of another painting – or rather, a drawing, a charcoal sketch fixated with hairspray, still carrying its smell. It shows Irene – _definitely_ Irene, she’s seen depictions of herself often enough to know her defining characteristics,  the way her flesh and blood translates to line and shade – lying on a bed, hair tousled and pose unartful, natural. There’s a second person in the drawing, vague and undefined, a background figure, only their hand and arm truly visible. Their fingers are spread over Irene’s shoulder, and Irene’s hand covers theirs.

Irene immediately takes a taxi to Kate’s. The girl is waiting at the door, one shoulder against the doorway, arms crossed, a clear amused challenge in the tilt of her lips.

“Boss,” she says when Irene walks up to her. “Or is it Miss Adler?”

“Irene,” she says, then holds up a slim piece of cloth.

Kate raises and eyebrow but takes it, studies it for a moment, then puts it across her eyes and knots it behind her head. The burgundy silk clashes horribly with her auburn hair.

“There we go,” Irene says warmly.

She’s close enough that she can see the hairs on Kate’s arms stand up.

She takes Kate by the elbow and leads her back to the taxi, where the driver widens his eyes but doesn’t comment. She paid him well enough for that.

Kate stays silent the whole ride. Easy enough to mistake that for submission, obedience, but Irene can’t help but read it as another challenge, a refusal to play along.

The car pulls up right in front of the house. Irene pays, then guides Kate out of the car and onto the steps, into the house, one hand at her silk-covered hip. Kate lets herself be led with delightful ease, a fact Irene stores away for later.

She stops Kate in the middle of the foyer and touches her shoulders, leans up to whisper in her ear. “Your new home. Want to see?”

“Yes please,” Kate says, but her smile, that icy confident smile, makes the submission of the words evaporate in a puff of smoke.

How many people would see that? And how many people – _men_ – have seen Kate’s smile, heard her words, and completely failed to notice the intention behind it?

Might be a useful quality, that.

Irene pulls the blindfold loose, careful of Kate’s hair, fingers lingering at Kate’s neck.

Kate gives the place a carefully measuring look. “It’s very tastefully done,” she says, waving her painter’s fingers at the cream of the walls, the curving lines of the furniture.

“Different from your place, of course.”

“Drastically.” She looks around, peeks inside the sitting room. Irene leans against the wall and watches her watching.

“I thought you’d like the lighting,” Irene says.

Kate gives her a look. “I do,” she says, and is that surprise in her voice for once? “Thank you. But it’s… it’s very _polished_.”

“Prefer the brick walls, do you?”

“Not really, it just… might take some getting used to.”

Irene takes Kate’s hand – cool, soft,a few stubborn paint patches staining her skin – and tugs her gently up the stairs.

“The bedroom?” Kate asks, her smile veering towards _flirtatious_.

“If you want.” Irene opens a door and lets Kate look inside. “What do you think?” she asks softly as Kate leans over her shoulder, bringing in the scent of soap and paint and turpentine. “Work or private?”

Kate looks aside. From this close, her eyes are mesmerising, a mesh of colours framed by long thick eyelashes. No mascara today, leaving them their natural reddish-brown colour. It makes her gaze look oddly undefined. “Testing me?”

“Playing a game. Indulge me.”

Kate’s smile goes to _grin_ , and she turns back to the room. “Doesn’t look much like a dungeon, does it?” she says critically, head tilted to one side.

“So you’re saying private?”

Kate leans back, her hip brushing Irene’s. “I’m saying _work_. Don’t put words in my mouth.” She turns to face Irene, the skin at the corner of her eyes crinkling, trapping eyeshadow in the lines. “Am I right, then?”

In reply, Irene leans in for a kiss. Kate’s lips part sweetly underneath hers, but she keeps her hands to herself. It makes Irene smile, which breaks the kiss.

“Show me the private one, then,” Kate says, her eyes glittering. Enjoying the game, then, that’s good.

Irene takes Kate’s hand again and they go up another floor. “Be aware of your privilege,” Irene says as they take the stairs. “There aren’t many who will ever be allowed to _ascend_.”

“To heavenly heights,” Kate murmurs.

The velvet carpet muffles their footsteps, Irene’s sharp heel disappearing almost to half of its length into the lush fabric. Kate is in flats, naturally, practical and unglamorous.

Another door, this one closed. Kate’s hand falters on the doorknob. “Where’s the key, then?” she asks. “What test do I need to pass this time?”

Irene touches her collarbone, fingertips brushing the silver chain, and gives Kate a wink.

Kate reaches out and tugs, gently. The chain slides up along Irene’s skin, tinkling softly, as Kate draws out the little key she’d been keeping there.

“It’s warm,” Kate says softly.

“I’ve been keeping it for you, but it’s yours now. If you want it.”

“I do.”

Kate opens the door. Inside is Irene’s bedroom, her _proper_ bedroom. It’s luxury of a different kind than the rest of the house, a room where comfort prevails over stylishness or appeal. Soft sheets and throws, warm rich colours, thick-cushioned chairs and a large low bed.

Kate’s hands slide to Irene’s hips and she leans in for a kiss, but Irene slips out of her grip. “Not yet.”

“There's more?.”

“Isn't there always?”

Irene takes Kate’s hand again, fingers loosely holding fingers, casual and light. They pass the other rooms, ignoring them, and go up the final set of stairs.

“Ascending even further?” Kate asks, with what might be unease or might be just curiosity.

“This is yours,” Irene tells her as they go up the stairs. “But again, only if you want it.”

They stop at the top of the stairs, where a large trapdoor blocks their way. Irene unlocks it, then pushes the heavy wood up and opens up the room.

She steps up. Kate’s eyes widen and her hand falls away from Irene’s as she follows after, up unto the attic room. She takes one or two steps further, then stops, looking around like a child caught up in wonder. Irene cocks her head, taking in Kate’s expression, then follows her eyes, seeing what she sees.

The floor is plain unpolished wood, the walls white-painted brick, and the ceiling has a set of bright modern lights, able to dim and cast the room in fairytale-like glow at night. Irene tested yesterday.

But the main thing, the thing that drew Kate from her grasp like a moth to a flame, is the skylight set into the slanted roof on one side.

Irene comes up behind Kate and wraps her arms around the girl’s waist, leans her chin on Kate’s shoulder. “Do you like it?” she asks, softly.

Kate strokes Irene’s arm, absently, eyes still on the wide view of London. “Yes. Yes, I like it.”

She turns. Irene drops her hands to Kate’s waist, holding as if they’re about to dance. “It’s yours,” Irene tells her again. “If you want to.”

“And you?” Kate strokes Irene’s cheek. “Are you mine too?”

Irene doesn’t reply. She wouldn’t even know how to reply. But she keeps her arms around Kate, and that should be answer enough.

Kate’s unpainted mouth turns into a soft smile. “And I? I am yours? Is this a trade, a fancy room in return for my soul?”

“Do you want it to be?”

“I’ll consider it,” Kate says, but this time her smile contains no coldness at all.

***

There is no furniture in the room yet, nothing but a mattress Irene was presumptuous enough to have placed there. She’s grateful for it, though; the wooden floor is still untreated at the moment and nothing kills the mood like an unexpected splinter in one’s backside.

There’s something strange about fucking on only a mattress. Not exactly sleazy, but it calls up fantasies of student times and quick sweaty sex in between lectures or study sessions. Not something Irene should indulge in. Not something even Kate belongs in.

And yet it’s also somehow fitting. Maybe it’s the simplicity of it.

Either way, it’s very satisfying to see Kate here, in this environment, in this light, naked and back arched and eyes closed, expression one of rapture.

She’s still smiling, even now, teeth bared and lips smudged with Irene’s lipstick.

Irene winds her fingers into Kate’s tangled hair and pulls. Kate is sitting down, one hand splayed behind her for support, Irene straddling her thighs. Kate’s muscles are straining with the effort, her stomach hard underneath Irene’s hand.

“You could just lie down,” Irene whispers.

“Let go?” Kate opens her eyes. “Boring.”

Irene grabs Kate’s hips and rolls over, pulls her along. Kate ends up on all fours above Irene, almost toppling off the mattress. “There,” Irene says smugly. “Better?”

Kate hums. Irene reaches up, slides two fingers inside of her and pushes in, up. Kate's face twists into something that looks like agony, hips canting forward, desperately searching for friction Irene refuses to give her.

“You’re beautiful,” Irene says softly as she keeps curling her fingers, works in a third, a fourth, drinking in Kate's swallowed noises. “Gorgeous. Perfect.”

Kate laughs, not taking the compliment, then leans down, elbows on either side of Irene’s hand. “Come on,” she says, voice hot and torn at the edges, “Do it.”

Irene grins and thrusts her fingers deeper, rubs her thumb against Kate’s clit and the girl gasps, then grins wide, teeth showing, feral. “ _God_ , yes.”

Irene forces herself up and bites down on Kate's nipple, at the same time as she pushes her fingers up hard and pinches Kate's clit and Kate opens her mouth wide, throat working but no sound coming out. Muscles contract hard around Irene's fingers and Kate's nails dig into Irene's shoulders and her eyes are closed, body tense like a bow, quivering.

Kate rides out the aftershocks, then suddenly almost seizes and scrabbles to pull Irene’s hand forcibly away. She’s panting, flushed, the shock of orgasm starting to fade into smug satisfaction.

“You’re beautiful,” Irene says again, quite truthfully.

Seems to become a habit, being truthful around Kate.

Kate nestles herself on top of Irene’s chest like a kitten curling its tail around itself. Her breathing has evened out but her fingers are still moving, little caresses as if she can't stand the thought of being still, even now.

“You weren’t like this last time,” Irene says, after a moment.

“Like what?”

“Like you.”

“Not entirely, no,” Kate says, the smile audible. Her fingers trail over Irene’s collarbone, her neck. “Do you like it?”

“Yes.” Irene looks down fondly at Kate’s head, the messy tangle of red. “I quite approve. Not regretting my purchase at all.”

Kate nips sharply at Irene’s neck in reproach, then pushes up, her eyes glittering. “Well?”

“Well.”

Kate smirks, then leans down, shoulderblades standing out high and catlike. She crawls down and runs a hand lazily down over Irene’s thigh, then brings her mouth in close, for a moment giving nothing more than hot breath, barely felt.

Then the tip of her tongue flicks against Irene’s clit.

Irene’s breath catches.

“I like you too,” Kate says, with a quick glance, a sharp smile. Then she dips her head again and settles in, hands resting on Irene’s thighs and body spread out, like she’s intending to spend the rest of the night there.

Irene laughs, breathless, and tilts her head back and gives in to the skilled wicked pressure of Kate’s touch, her hands wound into her mass of hair and her eyes closed.

“ _Kate_ ,” Irene gasps, as the girl uses her teeth, and Kate falters, only for a second before picking up again.

Too bare, that. Too human. Too vulnerable.

Irene still doesn't take it back.

***

Afterwards Irene disentangles herself from Kate’s embrace and gets the maid’s outfit from the wardrobe. Kate laughs when Irene shows it to her, a completely spontaneous and natural burst of laughter.

“Honestly?” she asks, mockery spread out across the syllables.

“Oh, yes.” Irene smiles. “My clients have certain expectations, and it pays off to play into that.”

Kate stands up and holds out her hand in request, or demand. Irene hands the uniform over and Kate fingers the fabric, a thoughtful expression on her doll's face. “This isn’t what you want for me, though, is it?”

“You need to ask?” Irene says, eyebrow up.

Kate gives her a fleeting smile, then holds the skirt against her waist. “It’s too big,” she murmurs.

“I know, it still needs to be tailored.”

Kate looks up, something odd in her moss-and-stone eyes. “A website,” she says, slowly. “A portfolio full of pictures. A Belgravia townhouse. And now a maid. Am I just the latest accessory?”

“In a way.”

Kate looks down at the skirt again, her lips thin, and something unexpected twinges in Irene’s chest.

“I didn’t plan for you,” she says, impulsively.

“You’ve already got the uniform,” Kate says, with a strange sort of contempt.

“I planned for your job, yes. Not for _you_.”

Kate tilts her head, eyes on Irene.

“And I wasn’t that certain you’d say yes, either,” Irene adds, softly.

“Unpredictability.” Kate smiles, the impish smile that’s kinder, more joyful than her usual one. “I bet that’s something you’ll have to get used to, hm?”

“I look forward to it.”

Irene takes the uniform from Kate’s hands and, painfully aware of the awkward meaningfulness of the gesture, puts it aside. Then she hooks her hand behind Kate’s neck and pulls her down for a deep, leisurely kiss. Kate curls towards her, her hands on Irene’s waist and her stomach pressing against Irene’s, but Irene pulls away.

“Hold on,” she says, then leaves Kate standing to go to the lights. She glances up through the skylight – London sky, polluted, grey, and boring – and waits for a moment, until Kate shifts as if in impatience.

Then she switches on the fairy lights trailing along the ceiling.

“There,” she says, as Kate laughs with childlike delight. “Perfect.”

“Isn't it just?" Kate sits down on the mattress again, legs folded neatly underneath her, and holds out her hand again. It's an interesting gesture, somewhere halfway between imperious and pleading. “Come here,” Kate says. “Please.”

Irene comes over, but before she can sit down Kate throws her arm around Irene's legs and leans her head against Irene's hip. Irene hesitates briefly, then puts her hand lightly on the top of Kate's head.

“I don't need this,” Irene says carefully.

“I know that.” Kate looks up, neck craned. “This isn't for your benefit.”

Irene runs her hand through Kate's hair, thinks of the internship boss, the barista at the café, Elaine. God knows how many others there've been apart from those. How many stories Kate still has to tell.

“Why?” Irene asks, curiously. “Why me?”

Kate looks up and smiles again, her typical smile knowing and confident, sly and amused and superior. 

But it's warm too, just this once.

“Irene,” Kate says, low and heavy. Not an answer.

At least, not an answer anyone else could understand.

Irene goes down to one knee and cradles Kate's head, presses a kiss against her forehead, then pulls her down to the mattress again. Her hand goes down without preamble between Kate's legs, where she's still wet and tender from before. “ _Irene_ ,” Kate gasps, in a wholly different tone.

“Kate?” Irene says, carefully innocent, her finger drawing feather-light patterns on Kate's slick skin.

And Kate growls and grabs Irene roughly around the waist, rolls her around and kisses her deep and grins her hips against Irene's thigh, and this, well, this...

Unplanned for, yes. But it'll work.


End file.
